Rules and statutes of the Spanish Military Orders of Calatrava and Santiago: the evolution of two attitudes towards women (12th‒15th centuries)

Abstract

Rules and statutes of military orders regulated the daily life of the members, their behaviour, their membership, and the relationship they must maintain between them and with people outside of the orders. Hence, the analysis of normative sources may provide insight into the study of women who lived inside and outside of the military orders in the Iberian Peninsula. Most of them mention lay and conventual sisters. However, they also speak of other women, such as “half‒sisters”, Moors and even concubines. The aim of this paper is to study the place of women and their relationship with the orders, according to the rules and statutes. Is their presence and their relationship with brothers only determined by their gender? What do the main evolutions of those sources, from the 12th to the 15th century, reveal about the attitudes of the orders towards women? Focusing on the two main Spanish orders, Calatrava and Santiago, this article attempts to answer these questions by examining the different profiles found in the normative sources. It begins by introducing the main differences of both orders in their inclusion and exclusion of women, and presents the main changes and evolutions that occur until the Late Middle Ages. What can be observed is that the attitudes of Calatrava and Santiago were first markedly different, especially towards the integration of women into the orders and the conjugal chastity to which women are often associated. It appears that it was changing with the development of the orders until the 15th century, when the gap between men and women members may have become less relevant than between lay and cleric members.